DINO Brown County State Park Race Report

The plan almost went off without a hitch. Almost.

 

The Brown County DINO race day dawned with partly cloudy skies and a threat of rain. A debate had been raging on the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association Forum about whether the race should take place, considering the rain of the previous day.  Trail reports varied. Some trails were muddy messes, others, including the race course, were reported as solid, but a little damp. Considering BCSP has almost 30 miles of trail, I would think it natural that some trails would be worse than others. Either way, the race was on.

I arrived in plenty of time, and got in a good warm up and knocked back a power gel just before the start. We lined up…..and nothing.  We were on a delay due to an injury to a Cat 1 rider. Apparently he clipped a tree and was launched off of his bike and hit another tree while in the air. Unfortunately, the crash occurred on the Green Valley trail and was just about as far from an access road as one can get in the park. I stood around at the start line for about 20 minutes until I concluded this extraction would take awhile. I went and found some shade to relax for a bit.

Ultimately, the race did start at around 1:30.  Unfortunately, my nice warm up was gone, as was the power gel I had consumed. The start takes racers across a grassy field and then a right turn onto the paved park road. Unfortunately, from there, the road goes straight up into a mile long, almost 300 foot climb. I didn’t have a fast start, and actually did not plan for one. I stayed in the back and on the outside of the group as we hit the road and the climb. Then, as I had expected, people began to blow up.

All those hill repeats paid off and I made quick progress to the front, and passed the leaders. I hoped to get a strong gap on the remainder of the climb, and in fact did have a small gap at one point. However, the lead group of four riders I had passed surged and got on my wheel. As we came up to the drop into the singletrack I was passed by one rider from a local brewery team in a green kit (who had a teammate with him). His teammate was behind me, as was Mike Backer, a rider who has placed in the top three in each race this year. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold off Mike I gestured for him to pass and he took the lead, while I was in third.

Once on the trails, I found them to be in great shape. No standing water, a few muddy spots which were chronically that way, but overall very solid. I was in third for a good chunk of the North Tower loop, but my effort on the first hill was getting to me. I was having a hard time keeping second place in sight, and fourth and fifth were right on me. I finally let them around and tried to recover on the remainder of the downhill from North Tower.  

Exiting North Tower I crossed a creek and headed towards the short side of Aynes, a slightly more than 100 ft climb over rocky and rooty terrain. I caught up to third and fourth place here briefly when one of them from the brewery team crashed going into the Aynes trail. I had recovered slightly and did well on the climb but didn’t gain as much ground as I would have liked. Entering the first downhill of Green Valley I was tired and tried my best to keep up speed. Unfortunately, the brewery rider caught and passed me.

However, on Green Valley I got my second wind. I began to gain on the brewery rider, especially on the climbing sections. Additionally, on the some of the ravine crossings I spotted third place not very far ahead. I continued to gain and was feeling good about catching at least one, or both as we left Green Valley and went onto the short side of North Tower and the connector back to the finish.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. While on the connector I was envisioning the trail ahead and thought that we had gone through the last of the rooty and rocky sections and that around the next bend was the beginning of the fast descent. With fourth place just ahead of me, I shifted to my big ring in anticipation of charging hard…..and came around the corner to one last slightly technical uphill section. I’ve ridden this section many times with no problems. However, I was in the wrong gear and after hitting a few roots I lost momentum and just stalled out. I jumped off the bike, and ran through the rest of the roots and some mud and jumped back on, but it was too late. I pushed hard but could not catch fourth place.

While disappointed with not getting a podium spot, I found that I had finished 9^th overall, well ahead of most of the 19-29er field. My first top ten finish was a nice result. Interestingly, the 30-39er field was very competitive in this race. The top 5 all finished in line together and within 2 minutes of each other, while 3-5^th were all within about 30 seconds. Overall I was happy with my performance and my plan. In retrospect trying to open a gap on the climb was fool hardy and probably wasted some energy. I might have been better served catching the lead group and just sitting in with them as opposed to trying get a big break. I was especially happy with my pursuit in the last half of the race. If not for the hike a bike near the end I think I could have caught 4^th and maybe 3^rd.

As for the injured rider, post reports indicate that he broke several ribs and had a small pneumothorax (collapsed lung) but his head and spine were ok.

The Brown County race is week two of a 5 week stretch of races. This weekend is the Rangeline Rampage Time Trial, followed by the Versailles DINO race on July 21, followed finally by the Planet Adventure Night Race at Southwestway Park in Indianapolis on July 27. I’ll be racing in the singlespeed class for that race. Should be a fun, but tiring month.

The race venue at the conclusion of the races. Lot more activity earlier in the day.